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Month: September 2017

Shelled coconut in Chiang Mai, Thailand

Shelled coconut in Chiang Mai, Thailand

One of the the things I’ve always loved about Thailand is being able to get fresh coconuts. They usually look like this: You’ll find them everywhere in Thailand. The usual way to serve them is to use a cleaver to make 4 cuts in the top. You can then either remove the top entirely or just poke a straw in and drink the coconut water. Once you’ve finished that you can scrape off the young coconut from the inside. So…

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Making red bean baby ‘porridge’ in Thailand

Making red bean baby ‘porridge’ in Thailand

Karl came back from the Western store yesterday with the closest thing he could find to baby porridge – multigrain porridge with red bean. Here goes! Step 1: Add strange ‘porridge’ balls Step 2: Sprinkle with seaweed Step 3: Add hot water Step 4: Wait a few minutes And the verdict? Jack (2 1/2) – Spat it out instantly Cade (9 months) – Ate most of the bowl! Success! Related articles Does organic have to cost the earth? How to…

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Back to Thailand – this time with kids!

Back to Thailand – this time with kids!

We came to Thailand on our honeymoon and now we’re back, with kids. We’re on our way to Chiang Mai for 6 months, but decided to stop in Bangkok for a night to recover before flying again. If it was just adults we would have done it in one go, but with the kids we wanted a bit of breathing room. I did start to regret this when I remembered that we have kids but no car seats so couldn’t…

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Long haul flight with toddler and baby

Long haul flight with toddler and baby

We just survived our long haul flight with toddler and a baby – Thailand here we come! Lots of parents worry about flying with a toddler. We thought it might help to have our ‘itinerary’ and packing list of the flight we just took. We were on the plane for 12 hours. Our 2 1/2 year old and 9 month old were well behaved and the adults got to the end of it still feeling pretty happy and positive. So…

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10 best books for 2 year olds

10 best books for 2 year olds

Your 2 year old is getting bored of ‘That’s not my…’ books and is looking for something a bit more challenging. Or maybe you’re looking for stories for kids that won’t drive the adult reading them insane. All the other lists I’ve seen have books that are far too complex for a two year old – I’ve seen things like the ‘Mr Men’ books listed. There’s no way my 2 1/2 year old could concentrate through all those words! So…

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Birdworld (near Farnham, Surrey)

Birdworld (near Farnham, Surrey)

This trip was quite nostalgic for me, as my parents took me to Birdworld quite regularly when I was young. Since I’ve last been they’ve expanded their range of animals, and have lots more shows throughout the day – there’s around 1 per hour throughout the day. The park’s medium sized, so if you time it right you can go from show to show, seeing the rest of the animals in between. Birdworld feedings, events and shows When we went…

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The purge

The purge

The last couple of days we’ve done a huge purge of our possessions in preparation for moving to Thailand. When we moved to Berlin a couple of years ago, we drove 30 boxes of stuff, plus some freestanding items in a van across the channel. We don’t have that option for Thailand – we get 3 cases, plus carry on luggage and that’s it! Anything else has to stay at my parents’ house. So time to be ruthless with our…

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Getting a multi entry visa to Thailand for families

Getting a multi entry visa to Thailand for families

So we decided to get multi entry visas for our upcoming trip, as they would give us 6 months of entry to Thailand. For details about the difference Thai tourist visas and Thai visa exemptions available click here. It was pretty nervewracking applying for these visas! If you want to do a trip longer than 60 days they don’t make it easy. You either have to come in on a 60 day single entry visa, leave the country and come…

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First week of playing Ukelele

First week of playing Ukelele

At the start of the week we decided to buy two ‘family Ukeleles’. Our two year old, Jack, loves music and keeps talking about his grandad’s guitar, and the ‘little guitar’ (Ukelele) that he gets to play at their house. We figured that having the grown ups learn too would be a great way to encourage him, so here we are: Day 1: Burning fingers when playing ukelele We just unwrapped our brand new Ukeleles. A mahogany one for me…

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Choosing a type of visa for entry to Thailand for families

Choosing a type of visa for entry to Thailand for families

Flights are booked, jobs have been left and our Flat’s well on its way to being cleared out. It’s time to get the visas. For Thai tourism there are basically three ways to enter the country: Types of visa for Thai tourism Visa exemption (trips to Thailand under 30 days long) For trips of fewer than 30 days, you can get a visa exemption. You can find the full list of countries for which this is possible here (UK, Canadian…

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